Effacing Colours, Barely Dancing
Born in 1974, Giuseppe Ielasi grew up in the south of Italy and now resides in the outskirts of Milano with his family. He has been making music and touring since the late nineties (he tours much less nowadays). He mostly plays solo, but also in Bellows (with Nicola Ratti), Rain Text (with Giovanni Civitenga) and in duos with Enrico Malatesta, Kassel Jaeger, Andrew Pekler and collaborates regularly with film-maker and photographer Armin Linke (also editing his films). He has released (short) rec…
Labirinto
Tip! On October 4, 2022, Jorge Nuno had a stroke and underwent surgery on February 4, 2023, to close a small hole in his heart. A year later, he presents 'Labirinto,' an audacious music album that is a reflection of his journey and a testament to his resilience. This album, primarily featuring solo acoustic guitar, showcases Jorge Nuno's endeavor to expand his musical language into new territories. Recorded at Namouche Studios in Lisbon and meticulously mixed and mastered by Rodrigo Pinheiro, 'L…
Guitar Solos / Fifty
Big tip! Lunching into 2024 after after a stellar 2023, Week-End Records delivers one of their most important offerings to date, the first vinyl reissue of Fred Frith’s seminal 1974 solo debut, “Guitar Solos”, in more than 40 years, marking the album’s 50th anniversary. A groundbreaking work in the field of avant-garde recordings that changed everything in its wake, incorporating a startling range of sonorities and approaches within constrained means, to celebrate its half-century mark, Frith ha…
Trances
Trances, Jules Reidy’s follow-up to the celebrated Music by Jules ReidyMixed by James GinzburgMastered by Stephan MathieuArtwork by Florian & Michael QuistrebertPhotograph by Camille BlakeDesign and art direction by Bartolomé Sanson (2022), takes place in between states, tracing a kind of restless movement in search of—or is it away from?—a center. The twelve tracks shift between fragment and epic, returning to familiar phrases between forays outward into uncertain expanses. Through its explora…
9th Avenue
*2023 stock* For me, this is the blues. Utterly wailing "solos" over a base of thick distorted guitars, Loren Connors' music conjures up scenes of lonely streets, dark nights, but also hopeful and joyful mornings. 9th Avenue is the first vinyl reissue of a CD Loren released on his Black Label in 1995, a view into his mid-90's heavier electric guitar era, back when he was going by his Loren Mazzacane Connors moniker.
9th Avenue fits right alongside releases from that same time period, such as Lon…
Metal Machine Music
*2023 stock* Lou Reed's Metal Machine Trio/Re-Mastered to the specifications of the original master, playable on home theatre systems. Lou Reed has gone back to the original multi-tracks and has digitally re-mastered his 1975 classic album "Metal Machine Music." This is the one and only official re-mastered edition of "Metal Machine Music", re-issued, supervised and approved by Lou Reed himself. The re-mastered edition is released on Reed's very own Sister Ray label in three formats - double gat…
Abbuio
"Abbuio" is a term that refers to the Italian translation of the English word "Blackout" according to the proposal of the Italian linguist Arrigo Castellani. This new work marks Bignamini's return to the solo acoustic guitar. Moving away from the more classic fingerpicking style, he offers five soft "ballads" (3 improvisations and 2 compositions) inspired by sleepless nights.
Isocèle
*100 copies limited edition* Headlights Recordings presents Manuel Mota's new work Isocèle. Manuel Mota is known for the personal vocabulary he has developed for the guitar. His music draws inspiration from a multitude of references loosely rooted in the blues tradition to craft a sound which was highly regarded by Derek Bailey. Actual but transmitting an enigmatic sense of timelessness. The moment of creation- composition, and the instrumental execution- playing, are to him indistinct, and that…
Sologuitar 1
*50 copies limited edition* "This is a set of solo guitar pieces recorded over the course of a few weeks that are sometimes percussive, sometimes droney, sometimes noisy and sometimes nothing. I have recently rediscovered my love for playing the guitar and I used these recordings to work out some sort of live solo guitar set, so there is very little post production and everything is a little gritty as a result. I like a lot of the sounds found in recording this and if you listen I hope you do as…
If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection
The fantastic new album from tireless seeker Emily Robb. It’s a no-frills, high-minded celebration of guitar and sound and tone and string and amp and adventure committed to tape at Emily’s own Suddenly Studio in Philadelphia in fits and spurts stretching over 2022/23. These are economical tunes of utter trance and tightrope pulsations, with a fearless spirit and a devotion to energy and personality that digs into previously untapped mines. With zero fuss and pomp, “If I Am Misery Then Give Me A…
New Bodies
*2023 stock* First two tracks and Side A of New Bodies. From Los Angeles, also of Open City – first full length-- single takes, live--Intensely physical and abstract music that constantly, unpredictably shifts and evolves. Impulse, memory and intent, laid bare in real time. Post-melody, post-groove sound. Concrete, brutal, yes fun-----
Engines In Unity
A main architect of one of the most exciting and innovative groups of the last decade, Guerilla Toss, Arian Shafiee has recorded for labels as varied and iconic as Sub Pop, DFA and Tzadik. Engines in Unity is the brilliant follow up to his 2018 VDSQ debut solo album, A Scarlet Fail. The record presents a retrospective of Shafiee's singular relationship with the guitar thus far, reconciling his interest in slow, languorous music and deep sound design. Vivid and often destroyed, the pieces on Engi…
Guitar Improvisations
For the 36th installment of our Catalytic Artist Albums series, we are excited to present an exclusive collection of improvisations on nylon string guitar by the exceptional, Tashi Dorji. Recorded over the month of August, this record showcases Dorji's most recent work and explorations on the guitar. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
Tashi Dorji
Tip! Early acoustic guitar improv performances from the Bhutanese expat, who’d come to Asheville, NC to study in 2000 and discovered worlds of anarcho-punk and avant garde such as he’d only dreamed. Having made recordings of his newly-located improvisational conception, he intuited a desire to go deeper in his explorations of the recorded sound of the guitar, melding and colliding traditional music with his feeling for the range of textures within.
Pre-Existence
*2023 stock* Limted 2022 restock, last copies. Originally released in 2006. Tetuzi Akiyama has been a major player on the free music/improv scene in Tokyo for over 20 years. Pre-Existence first came out on CD as a part of the great Wooden Guitar series from Locust. Akiyama's playing here is one of a minimalist approach, discovering and investigating the empty spaces between each note. He does not follow the Takoma guitar school style of finger-picking, but instead invokes a far more warped primi…
Electric Solo
*2023 stock* "I started the “Electric Solo” project in 2008 – the same year I recorded my first pesonal album. A lot has happened since then; Concerts, personal albums, collaborative albums. Many tracks from these projects became part of the “Electric Solo” repertory and were performed live in an improvisational manner, reflecting the ambience of each night, the venues and my own mood. I chose to record tracks that were already part of my personal discography, along with some musical themes that…
Tabulatura (Volume 2)
Tabulatura is a 2008 indeterminate composition for sixteen pre-recorded guitar parts and computer with custom software. It is conceived as a system to generate different acoustic patterns. The Volume 2 documents eight pieces recorded live at Palazzo Castagna, Città Sant'Angelo, Italy, in November 2020. The album was recorded on two-track, directly on hard drive, without DSP and overdubs.
Neuter
Sofie Herner (Enhet För Fri Musik, Neutral) returns with Neuter, the first proper album since the Gitarrmusik III-X LP released on Förlag För Fri Musik back in 2017. Neuter was recorded between 2018 and 2021 and is the culmination of a very distinctive and unmistakable sound Sofie has developed and refined during close to 10 years now. The music of Leda is based on primitive guitar loops of various lenghts, loops that intervenes and creates peculiar rhythms and subtle harmonies. Slow-burning pro…
Fragments
Rachika Nayar’s fragments is a collection of sonic miniatures constructed from guitar loops and in the familiar comforts of her own bedroom. First released as a limited edition cassette by RVNG Intl’s Commend THERE imprint in 2021, fragments (expanded) adds an entire new side of previously unreleased music to the collection, which has been newly mastered by Rafael Anton Irrisari.
While growing up and developing a relationship with the instrument and her capabilities, using delay pedals to improv…
Grain Live
"It’s unfortunately rare for an improviser, especially in a solo context, to concentrate on one idea, a single angle of attack, and to work that idea deeply, to discover hidden jewels within a relatively “narrow” range and further, to surprise the listener with unexpected divergencies. Agnas, in the three selections from a live event presented here, does this beautifully. On ‘1992’, he places his guitar on his lap and approaches it as a kind of dulcimer, generating a strong and captivating rhyth…